


This House Is Full of Noise

by Urbiezira



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:48:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Urbiezira/pseuds/Urbiezira
Summary: Somewhere deep down, Max knows the world is a dark and scary place. However, he does not truly know how dark until a solar flare wipes out all modern technology in the blink of an eye. While Dan brings some light back into the trying days that follow, his presence sheds a light on something hidden far and deep below the surface of Max' consciousness. Surviving the apocalypse is hard, and nothing worth having ever comes without a cost. Or so they say.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic back into the fandom in three years. This fic started as an exercise for me to get back into writing, and to help me deal with the general stress of life. I had no intention of posting it, but ended up thinking: why not? Therefore, bear with me as I truly get reaccustomed to writing things that are not scientific papers!
> 
> With regard to the fic - without spoiling too much - it will deal with themes that are likely to come up in any apocalypse fic: violence, trauma, a general hefty dose of angst (I do love me some angst). If there are any particular warnings for a chapter that go beyond these, I will make sure to mention them, but I suspect these will cover most of it. 
> 
> I am ultimately here to ship these guys. Don't doubt that I have my fair share of angst in store for them, I wouldn't be myself if I didn't, but there will be fluff as well (for as far as that's applicable in an apocalyptic setting, haha). Also, short FYI: the fic is set in the autumn of the 2019 season, and the title comes from a song by the Editors with the same name.
> 
> In this trying time of thesis research and finishing my degree, any encouragement in the form of kudos or comments is very welcome! I'd love to hear what you guys think. For now, I'll stop babbling. Enjoy the fic!

Max refuses to understand the severity of the news until Christian calls him to tell him the race is cancelled, and if he can please ensure he’s safe. The call doesn’t last long, because time is of the essence - twelve hours isn’t long to plan for the end of the world as we know it. Max realises the same thing as he calls his parents and barely manages to get a signal through the overloaded phone system. The minutes on the phone pass by in a haze, any and every suggestion to reunite after the storm hits inevitably ruined by the occurrence itself; phones will go out, GPS will cease working - including even old-school compasses - planes won’t fly, and taking a car without the option to fill up gas could prove to be suicidal. As he says ‘I love you’ to his mum and ends the call, he realises that he won’t be seeing them for a while. That potentially, he won’t be seeing anyone for a while.

The Brazilian Grand Prix is cancelled. A solar flare - also known as a mass coronal ejection - is scheduled to hit in roughly ten hours now. As far as the news is telling him on repeat, this means that all electric systems will go down. All satellites. All phone communication. Everything. Life as Max knows it will cease to exist for perhaps months, they do not know for sure.

The recommendations are to gather an emergency kit, blankets, medicine, food, whatever you can find, and bundle up. The military will come to help as soon as they are able. Max is not so keen on the idea of having to wait for the French to come to the rescue.

The air raid alarm has been ringing almost constantly, yet the streets are full. People are lining up around the corner from the Carrefour in the hope of getting some food, Max guesses. It’s strange how in less than 10 hours, money won’t matter anymore. He wonders if it’s even any use to go to the supermarket considering that fact - what would he have to barter for a loaf of bread, his signatures? His sweaty towel from the workout he did before the air alarm started blaring? Would people even care anymore who he is, what he used to do?

He walks back into his apartment, closing the balcony door behind him firmly. Better get started. Who knew that the doomsday preppers would ever beat him to the finish line.

 

* * *

 

It’s nine PM by the time he’s done gathering supplies and prepping his house, roughly four hours left until the solar flare is scheduled to hit earth’s magnetic field. In three hours they should know truly how heavy the storm will be, and in four the TV will go out and not come back on for a while.

He’s plugged in all his power banks and charges all his electronic devices in the case he needs them for anything. What exactly he cannot say, but he’s leaving no stone unturned. All doors and windows are lined by towels and blankets to keep the cold November air out of his house, and the heater is cranked to the maximum. He’s walking around bare-chested now, a luxury he will only be able to afford for a short while still.

In all his prepping he has not thought of his neighbours or his friends. He should text them with some pictures, let them know that he’s hunkering down in his apartment. Let them know he’ll be fine.

He’s not sure how truthful that comment will be, but he supposes it matters little. There’s nothing anyone can do to rescue him out of his sorry state, no one who can come and resupply him with food or mundane things like plasters and a flashlight. He might as well tell everyone he is fine to prevent them from worrying about him for months on end. Assuming they all make it through long enough to see the end of this apocalyptic tunnel.

He picks up his phone from the table where it’s charging and quickly snaps some pictures of his windows and doors. Then, one of himself for good measure. If the circumstances were any different, he’d consider posting them to Instagram. But the circumstances are different, and there’s no time to waste energy on posting something on social media. Instead, he sends his pictures to his family with the message “Will be alright, am a big boy now. Be safe.”

For his mum and sister he adds “Love you lots” with a heart. For his dad he leaves the message as is.

Before hooking his phone back onto the charger, he sends the same pictures to some of his friends to let them know he’ll be alright. He gets a thumbs up back here or there, but no one calls him. For the better, he thinks, he’s got better things to do. Somewhere in the house he has a bucket or two, which he should fill with water for when it inevitably stops flowing from the tap. Those will be added to the collection of water bottles he has stored underneath his sink. If he rations himself, the bottles plus the buckets should last him roughly three weeks. That should be plenty of time for the French military to get their affairs in order.

Food however is a bigger worry to Max. He doesn’t really cook much at home, and when he does, it’s mostly fresh produce. He’s not of the generation that stacks canned corn and beans in tomato sauce in their pantry, he’s the generation that goes out for toast with avocado and chili flakes to take a picture of it. He’s stocked up on protein bars and powder however, so he can at least hydrate and feed himself in one go. It’s too late now to go to any supermarket. Not only will they be closed, Max fears that it’d be a dangerous venture, even in a place such as Monaco.

He sighs deeply as he plops down on the couch, looking outside at the starry night sky. Whichever way this story goes, it’s going to be testing. He drifts off into a state between sleep and silent panic, describable as white noise in his brain. The TV hums in the background but he doesn’t listen. He’s set an alarm for midnight, when they predict to know more about the incoming storm. Until then he doesn’t need to listen.

What eventually shakes him from his reverie isn’t the alarm however, it’s an insistent knock on his front door. His synapses shoot into action and his skin tingles at the intrusion, seemingly already prepared to fight for his turf.

“Who’s there?” he calls out.

There’s no immediate answer. Max leaves the couch in favour of scouring the kitchen for his sharpest and most intimidating knife. Just in case. He feels rather ridiculous as he approaches the door, until the disheartening realisation hits that this might be the way he needs to answer the door for the foreseeable future.

The knocking has stopped, but there’s still noise outside the door. He takes a look through the peephole but sees very little, except for a shopping cart filled to the brim with what looks like supplies.

“Hello?” Max tries again. He’s still holding his knife up in the air as if he’s filming a bad movie, and someone is going to yell “cut!” in about ten seconds. Except that no one will.

More ruckus from outside the door, like the rattling of metal against metal. It nearly makes him jump out of his skin.

“Who’s there!”

“Max?” a familiar voice comes from the other side, “Open the door, mate!”

The knife clatters to the ground, missing Max’s foot by only an inch. He rushes to open the door as if there’s someone on Daniel’s heels, his brain still running in the Action Movie Panic Setting. On the other side of the door he finds his old teammate with two shopping carts full of blankets, water bottles and, not surprisingly, protein bars.

“Daniel!” Max exclaims, “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, I texted you,” he replies, frowning, as if that’s an answer Max’s question.

“Right, yeah, I kind of forgot about my phone. But come in, please.”

Max steps to the side to let Dan in, treading carefully as not to step into the sharp blade of his kitchen knife. If Daniel thought it was a weird thing to have lying around on the floor, he doesn’t mention it. After the Australian has stepped through the door with the first shopping cart, Max reaches into the hallway to pull the second through the door frame. Dan is clearly here to stay, the trolley full of mundane things like underwear, socks, and clean sweaters.

“You’re planning on staying, yeah?”

Dan nods in Max’s direction, so Max closes and locks the door. The first cart is pushed against the side of the breakfast bar, out of the general walking path. The other one Max pushes into the bedroom. That way, if anyone comes through his bedroom door at night, he’ll hear it. Daniel has already started unpacking some of the food and water he brought in the first cart, stacking it wherever he can. There’s a silver briefcase at the bottom of the cart that Daniel leaves in there for now.

Max picks up the knife he dropped and puts it back in the drawer he took it from. He and Daniel work in silence, unpacking the goods and personal belongings that Daniel has taken. The food and water that he’s added should stretch their stay in the apartment for about a week, taking into account that they’re now two.

“It’ll be nice to have some company,” Max comments as he puts away more bottled water under the sink, “I’ll have someone to play table football with.”

Daniel only hums in return. Clearly the gravity of the situation hit him equally hard as it did Max.

“Did you speak to your family?”

“Yeah,” Daniel replies, “They’re alright. It’s summer there, so they’ll have enough daylight to have barbies, and they’ll stay warm. Not nearly as warm as I am right now though, what’s up with your heating?”

The evening has been such a strange experience that Max had failed to register that his old teammate is wearing a rather oversized black hoodie, in stark contrast with Max’s bare chest. He must be dying of heat, considering the windows are fogged up from how high the temperature has risen inside his apartment.

“I turned up the heat to warm up the apartment as much as I can before the heater goes out. Isolated the windows too, as you saw.”

That brings out a low-key smile in the other man. “Why do you think I chose you as my mate to sit through the apocalypse with? Your impeccable Dutch engineering skills!”

“Aww, not even for my beautiful looks?” Max grins. These are the kind of exchanges he needs as they count the hours until the solar flare. Only two hours now until they hear how long they’ll be out of electricity. Until then they’ll have to keep prepping.

 

* * *

 

The news tells them it might be months. They sit together, watching the auroras flicker across the night’s sky. Purples, greens and blues fighting for a space on the blank canvas. They don’t speak a word to each other when the lights go out. Instead, they turn on a candle and share a beer, before going to sleep in separate bedrooms.

 

* * *

 

The sun rises relatively early still, waking Max up quite naturally. There’s no alarm clock from his phone, since he’d turned it off the night before to save the battery. A quick google search had taught him yesterday that the battery could last for a year when turned off, so that’s what he is counting on.

The first thing he notices as he pushes the blanket backwards, is that the sauna-like heat has disappeared from his apartment, replaced by a more sensible temperature. The second thing he notices is a buzzing feeling in his stomach, like those times as a kid you woke up and realised that today is your birthday. Except that today it isn’t his birthday, but much more likely the start of a trying few months. At least he no longer has to fear facing it alone.

When he walks into the living room, Daniel is already seated at the breakfast bar. He’s wearing a different sweatshirt than yesterday, this one from some band Max probably knows but has forgotten about. The old one probably reeks, considering how Daniel had been sweating in it the evening before.

That reminds him.

“We don’t have running water. We can’t shower anymore.”

Daniel looks up from the book he’s reading, and smiles, “You saying I stink?”

Max snorts. “It’s either that, or you should really considering changing your eau de cologne. Did you bring deodorant by any chance?”

“Put it in your bathroom,” Daniel replies, before turning his attention back to his book. Max sees him squint as he tries to read it, the sunlight clearly not strong enough this far into the apartment. He’s about to switch on the light when he realises that it’ll be of no avail. Instead, he grabs a small candle that he and Daniel discovered late last night and lights it with the lighter they left on the table.

“Here, maybe it helps,” he offers Daniel as he puts down the candle next to him.

“Thanks mate.”

The silence that follows is a pregnant one, neither men very interested in acknowledging their predicament. Max walks up to the window, staring out over his balcony into a world that doesn’t seem so different as it did the day before. Granted, there are less cars on the road, but once in a while one still moves through the street, roof box strapped to the top and car full of children and supplies.

Yesterday had caused such a sudden change in plans that Max’s brain hasn’t entirely caught up with all that it means. Pieces of information filter in as he stands and watches the life down below. There’s no running water, no electricity, and no heating. That much he’s realised by now. But what is going to happen when their food and water runs out? Are they going to knock on the doors of their neighbours with no idea what they’ll find? Is someone going to knock on his front door, or worse, force their way inside? He only has a kitchen knife, what is he supposed to do? Will he be charged with murder if he has to fight someone and it goes wrong? Is it-

“I can hear you thinking from here.”

Max hears Daniel close his book, put it down, and sigh. The room is considerably colder next to the window, despite his efforts to insulate the place. Daniel sighs again when Max doesn’t give him any indication that he’s heard him.

“You wanna talk about a plan?”

Max wiggles his toes as he stands, hands held clasped behind his back. It’s too early for him to be thinking this much, to be considering their future. He momentarily feels like 14 year old Max is stuck in 22 year old Max’ body.

“What plan?” Max turns to face Daniel, face held in an annoyed frown that masks the anxiety underneath. “You cannot make a plan for something like this.”

To Max, those words signal the end of the conversation.

“Don’t be like that, Max,” Daniel tries to plead.

To Daniel, they clearly don’t.

“Be like what, Daniel? Realistic?” he counters, frowning deeply. His brain feels like it’s running in two opposing directions, the one that thinks too much about what this all means, and the one that doesn’t want to think at all. It’s too much, too early, too soon, but he cannot stop his mouth from expressing what half of his brain hasn’t been able to stop thinking ever since the announcement. “What do we do when we run out of food and water? Or were you planning on surviving for months on protein bars and shakes?”

Daniel rises from his seat in annoyance, shoulders squared and a flash of anger crossing his expressive visage. Upon the realisation that Daniel, not unlike him, has been carefully toeing a line between fear and anger, Max wishes they’d both kept their mouths shut.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out here,” Daniel scoffs, “But sure mate, just lose your shit instead. We’ve got time!”

“Oh!” Max huffs in retaliation, “I’m not losing my shit!”

“ _’He_ _yells’_.”

“Oh, _krijg de_ _tering_ ,” Max swears in Dutch, fed up. He’s not made to have these discussions in general, let alone when something other than racing - his life - is actually at stake.

“Bless you,” Daniel quips while making a gesture with his hand and moving his head from side to side in mocking.

Max stalks out of the room before the urge to hit Daniel increases, slamming the door to the bedroom for good measure. Once he’s seated on his bed however, he has no idea what to do. They _need_ a plan, if not for the long-term, then at least for the rationing of the food. He might not have wanted to discuss it, or even admit it, but Daniel was right. He runs his hand through his hair and pulls on it at the end, beyond frustrated with the situation. It hasn’t even been twelve hours and he and Daniel are already bickering. The real Bonnie and Clyde of the apocalypse, they’ll be.

He reaches for his phone on the bedside table to distract himself, before realising that it’s not there. Even if it was, there’s nothing on there he can do or look at. Realising he’s effectively locked himself out of his own living room, he gets back under the covers to find something better to do. A wank it is then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Tumblr can be found under the same username, https://urbiezira.tumblr.com. Furthermore, this fic has a Spotify playlist that you can listen to! I give it a listen whenever I write. Feel free to check it out!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/urbiezira/playlist/45iKxSUkVItUtgfDFHtbF0?si=fazhFkAtQHS78qVxdiYD4g


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's chapter 2! I struggled with making it flow a little bit, but hopefully it still manages to live up to everyone's expectations.
> 
> Not sure I'll be able to post chapter 3 next weekend, as my thesis is reaching the critical stage of first full drafts and presentation of my results. I expect to be able to update once more before I finish my thesis, and then after July 3rd my updates will become more regular.
> 
> I also want to take a moment to thank everybody who left a kudos or a comment! I genuinely loved them. If you have any thoughts, musings or opinions on this chapter, please make me a happy camper by leaving another comment on the work! Many kisses from me. Hope you enjoy!!

By the end of the day they’ve found a way to talk about anything and nothing, while carefully dancing around the elephant in the room. They share one big bottle of water, one litre each, and have some of the fresh fruit that Max still has left in his house. Max doubts that in terms of calories they’ve made it above their base metabolic rate, but at least his stomach has stopped growling.

The apartment has lost all the heat Max had tried to keep inside, despite his best efforts. With the outdoor temperature being around ten degrees this time of year – not that it’s an exact science anymore now – the ambient temperature in the house requires both men to wear sweaters, socks and long trousers all day.

Daniel is still reading his book dutifully, but Max starting to become bored out of his mind. He’s been playing card games with himself most of the day with an old deck of cards, but there’s only so many times you can play solitaire without going batshit crazy. He gets up from the couch that Daniel and he are sharing and starts pacing the kitchen, opening cabinets as he goes.

“I’m just going to take some inventory,” he tells Daniel.

“Smart thinking,” the reply comes, “I brought a notebook, it’s on the side table next to the couch.”

Max picks up the yellow and black themed notepad from the white side table, snatches a pen from a drawer in the coffee table and proceeds to take inventory. It’s some form of peace offering or armistice, Max thinks to himself as he walks around the kitchen, opening cabinet after cabinet. Daniel is talking to him normally, offering him _some_ form of help. He scrunches up his face a little at the tinge of bitterness he feels somewhere in his chest.

Max notes there’s plenty of water now, enough that they’ll be able to use the water in the buckets for washing off. That reminds him he should go and rescue some of the towels from the ground before they get too dirty and dusty to dry themselves off with, cold be damned. They’ve got blankets, and sweatshirts, and plenty of layers of socks and hats to cover themselves with. He can put socks on his hands for all he cares. Dan would probably do that in an instant.

He opens more cabinets. There’s the spice rack, which is all but useless now. There’s some tablets to make soup and a package of old instant-noodles, but without anything to cook on, boiling hot water would be a challenge. The next cabinet holds some of Dan’s supplies, ranging from shaving cream to the metal briefcase he brought. Probably some important documents he doesn’t want to leave lying around, Max thinks. Finally, he opens the cabinet closest to his fridge. Fifty protein bars. 250 calories in one bar. That’s not a lot.

“Dan, how much do you weigh?” Max asks, while scribbling down some numbers on the notepad.

“66 kilos,” he replies, sounding like his reply is almost a reflex. A second later, he catches himself, and adds, “Might be more now. You need my measurements next?”

“Ha ha,” Max mocks him in return, but it’s half-hearted. In his head he’s already doing math - granted, not his strong suit - to figure out how many bars they’d need to eat to get to their BMR, and how long that would-

It shocks him.

“Four days,” he groans, “We’ve only got roughly four days of food, Dan. That’s…”

“Not a lot,” Dan responds. In the seeming neutrality of his voice is hidden a layer of fear, that Max only recognises because he’s heard it in racing. “You calculated my BMR,” he states after.

“Estimated, more like it. My math isn’t...”

He never finishes his sentence, instead choosing to lower himself onto a bar stool. He sinks his head into his hands and sighs deeply, before pulling on his own hair and groaning again.

“Fuck!”

They both understand what this means; there are two options for them. Eat less calories than they consume, and let hunger slowly chip away at their barely-existing fat as well as their muscles. That would mean they can stay in the apartment for longer, but it would also make them lethargic and vulnerable when they _do_ need to go out. Or, God forbid, in case they need to defend themselves.

The second option is not much more appealing. They would have to leave the building, which creates a host of other problems. Where do they go for food, and how do they respond to those whose paths they cross? Will stores still hold food, after the first citizens start looting? It’s risky at best, suicidal at worst. However, it also seems inevitable.

Silence stretches on as Max continues to hold his head in his hands, racking his brain over the risks and rewards of both options. While he cannot see Daniel, he knows that the man is no longer reading his book. He can hear his breathing, not loud, but loud enough for Max to notice.

“Wanna talk about that plan now?” Daniel starts gently, wary not to tip the carefully balanced scales of their understanding.

“Guess we’ll have to,” Max relents, “What do you suggest then?”

“Well,” Dan starts, “We’re going to have to find ourselves food to eat. That’s first.”

Max gives a weak nod, agreeing with his old teammate. His friend. Back in the day he would’ve joked that if there was someone he had to sit through the apocalypse with, it would be him. _That way I would never be bored_. He’s sure that’s what he would have said. Now, looking at the man sitting on his couch in his living room, in a world that’s grinding to a halt at a superhuman pace, he knows he would answer the same thing. Strong, level-headed, dependable are the words that he appreciates Daniel’s presence for in this situation. Humour however is the farthest from his mind right now.

“What’s next then,” Max asks when he realises he’s been silent too long. Daniel is looking at him, seeming curious about where Max’s brain just went. Max doesn’t feel in a mood to share. “We just go out and steal food? That’s a bit dangerous, don’t you think?”

“We race cars for a living, Max,” Dan retorts.

Max huffs. “ _Used_ to, mate.”

“No one has fired us yet,” he points out to the Dutchman, “But the fact that phone lines are down _might_ have something to do with that. _Maybe_.”

That brings a ghost of a smile to Max’s face. Maybe humour isn’t that far from his mind after all.

Daniel gets up from the couch then, putting his book down on the side table where the notebook had previously been. He walks up to the breakfast bar and grabs the pen Max had used for inventory. He alternates between twiddling with it and putting it between his teeth, lost in deep thought.

Max is about to interrupt his train of thought to ask when they should go on this suicide mission, but someone or something else beats him to it. A violent crashing sound comes from outside. Max looks at Daniel, who has dropped the pen in surprise. When a second, even more disturbing sound echoes outside, followed by a scream, both men are at the window in an instant. Max, perhaps foolishly, doesn’t hesitate to open the balcony door and rushes outside, leaning over the railing to see what is happening below.

Many stories below, splayed out over the concrete floor, is a young woman. The first thing Max notices is that her arm is bent in a strange way, stuck underneath her back. Then he sees the rest of her; her brown hair mingles with the blood that’s sputtering out of her chest in globs. A gunshot, that’s what they heard just moments earlier. Max doesn’t know what to say or do; it’s as if laying his eyes upon the display of recently-passed violence has nailed him firmly to the ground.

Max watches as a man comes charging from further down the street to the woman, desperately trying to put pressure on her wound. The wound is too significant, and the blood simply trickles through his fingers and around his hand. He cries for help, multiple times, and wails when he realises that no one is coming.

 _Or when he realises she is dead_ , Max thinks.

It is as if the world continues in black and white tunnel vision. At the same time, all his senses are heightened. He feels the cold wind against his cheeks, he hears the seagulls cry out, and he suddenly becomes aware of how tightly he is gripping the railing. Someone touches him and he screams.

“Max, shit, we have to go inside!” Daniel whispers as loudly and hurried as he can. One of those whispers that is accompanied by wide, panicked eyes. Decidedly not good.

Max’s feet move on their own accord as Daniel drags him back inside and shoves the glass door closed. The wailing from the man outside is muffled, and luckily no other gunshots are heard. Max is moved to the couch where Daniel pushes him down onto it - if the situation had been different, Max would have definitely made a joke. Instead Max sits and Daniel stands in cold, dead silence. The sound of blood rushing through his veins is loud inside his head.

“Shit,” Dan repeats, clearly at a loss for what to say. “We should...we should have made a plan.”

Max wonders how them making a plan would have helped that poor woman, but he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t dare to say anything, not confident that when he opens his mouth, it won’t be to let out another scream. His senses are filled with the scent of his own sweat, mixed with a hint of something that he can only accurately describe as the smell of fear. Moments pass by in his brain where he remembers being scared - most of them in racing, and one time on a jet ski - but fear is new. Pure, unadulterated fear. It’s as if a clock is ticking in his skull at twice the speed than the clock actually ticks, as if the images he takes in are simultaneously slowed down by half and going at the speed of light.

Daniel is talking to him but he cannot hear it. The ringing in his ears is _so_ loud. Just like he was gripping the railing, he’s now holding onto his legs, fingertips going white from the pressure.

“Max?” Daniel’s voice is tinged with alarm, “Max, where is the briefcase?”

Which briefcase?

“Max, mate!” he snaps his fingers in front of Max’s face, bringing him back from limbo with a big shock. “The briefcase, where’s the fucking briefcase?”

He manages to get his brain into gear at the sound of Daniel’s voice. The hurried whisper is back, with a vengeance this time. “What briefcase?” he repeats, even though he knows what Daniel meant. So much for his brain running at double speed. He sits up straighter, the movement an unanticipatedly daunting task; every bone in his body feels like jelly.

“I need to get to that briefcase, where did you put it?”

Max notices his breathing is shallow, almost panting, as he tries to get Max to answer. Dan’s eyes are blown wide, and Max realises that what had sounded like mild alarm before was actually more akin to panic than anything else. He racks his brain to find out where on earth he put it yesterday. It’s no longer in the shopping cart, that much he remembers, but he’s drawing a blank as to where he put it. Didn’t Dan move it?

He thinks about what he’s done ever since the other driver arrived. Fighting, reading a book - no, that was Daniel. A wank? He struggles to remember what else. Daniel is clearly getting impatient with him, moving nervously as if he had turned into a bobblehead. What did he do today? Cards, he played cards. What else? Notebooks and protein bars, inventory- then he remembers where he saw it. “Next to the fridge,” Max croaks out, throat as dry as parchment, “In the top cabinet.”

Daniel turns on his heel and makes his way to the cabinet in big strides, forcefully opening the cabinet and pulling out the metal briefcase. The briefcase makes a loud clang as Daniel drops it on the kitchen counter; it adds to the already existing ringing in Max’s ear. Despite the discomfort, he still feels immobilised in his seat. Daniel’s fumbling for something in his pocket as he leans over the briefcase, shielding it from the other man’s view.

“What’s in it?”

Max is ignored by Daniel, who has apparently found the key and is fumbling to open both sides of the silver container. While Daniel is trying his best to open the briefcase, Max hears noises coming from the hallway for the first time in two days; someone is there. The carpet in the corridor muffles most of the noise, but it is still undeniably a person who is making their way past Max’s front door.

Not a second after the noise from the hallway suddenly halts, Max hears another noise. It’s a sharp clicking noise, it sounds almost _plastic_ , and he realises it comes from where Daniel is standing. Max watches with wide eyes as his old teammate, the ever-smiley Australian, turns towards him with what is very clearly a handgun held in the palm of his hand.

“What the fuck, Daniel?” he shouts, “I thought you had your passport in there!”

“Shhh!” Daniel brings a finger of his empty hand up to his mouth, signalling that Max should be quiet, but it’s too little, too late.

 _“Qui est là?”_ a nervous voice comes from the other side of the door. The hallway side of the door. A shiver runs down Max’s spine at the words. He closes his eyes, hoping that he can wish all of this away. Sadly, when he opens his eyes, Daniel is still standing there, gun in hand, and the person on the other end of the door is still talking. _“Ouvre la porte!”_

While Max’s French has gotten a bit rusty over the years, he remembers plenty to know that he is definitely not going to follow up on what the man is asking them to do. Instead, he runs over to Daniel’s side of the room, as quietly as one can run, to hide. He grips Daniel’s bicep in an attempt to ground himself when he realises that he is shaking.

“What’s he saying?” Daniel hisses to Max. He holds the gun in both hands now, pointed somewhere at his feet and leaning back against the kitchen cabinet. It’s as if they’re in one of those police shows where they’re hiding behind a wall, waiting for the bad guy to bust through the door.

“He wants us to open the door.”

“Why?” comes Daniel’s reply, sounding hugely troubled by the situation at hand.

“ _Ouvre la porte!_ ” the man repeats. He starts banging on the door with his fist, loudly and in quick repetitions, “ _Je sais que vous êtes là!_ ” followed by a piercing “ _Ouvre!_ ”

The door will hold, Max thinks to himself, long enough for the man to realise that this is a futile effort. Long enough for him to calm his nerves and leave. Or so he hopes. Then, when the banging gets more insistent and the shouts begin to sound more and more anxious, a disturbing thought crosses the Dutchman’s mind.

“Daniel,” he whispers, “What if he wants to hide?”

The image of the woman on the ground below his balcony comes back to him in a flash. Spluttering, drowning in her own blood. Death by exsanguination or asphyxiation, whichever one came first. They hadn’t seen who had shot her; what if this man is running from the shooter?

Before Daniel can reply, Max makes his own plan. He digs up his best French for somewhere deep in his brain and wets his lips hastily. “ _Pourquoi?_ ” he shouts back, leaning across Daniel’s chest to get the message across the corner with more ease. Dan hisses “what the fuck?” at him, before closing his eyes and groaning. The Australian might not be a wonderchild of languages, but Max’s intonation clearly signalled that he had just asked a question.

The banging slowly comes to a halt. Everyone is silent, on both sides of the door. Max is still leaning across Daniel’s body, his arms, hands and the gun pressed tightly between their bodies, pressing into Max’s leg. The question whether Daniel has taken gun safety classes briefly crosses his mind, and he stores the thought in his brain alongside the other questions about the gun and Daniel that he’d like to ask the man once this is over.

“ _Je ne parle pas français_ ,” Max breaks the silence after a moment of contemplating what to say next. Daniel swats his arm in an attempt to get him to shut up, but Max doesn’t move an inch. “ _Tu parle anglais?_ English?”

The silence stretches on, and on, and for a moment Max thinks that the man has left. Daniel’s chest begins to move less erratically as his breathing slows down and deepens, breath after breath. The image of a young woman lying dead on the street is fresh in their minds however, so they stay in their positions, waiting anxiously, ready to move if necessary.

“Let’s talk, yeah?”

Suddenly, the banging starts all over again, with much more force than before. It picks up in urgency and Max’s heartbeat matches it within no time.

“So much for talking!” Dan hisses. He pushes Max off his chest forcibly. The Dutchman can barely catch himself on the kitchen counter before he stumbles down to the floor. The tiles are freezing to the touch as he lands on them with his elbows. When he’s managed to regain his footing enough to lift himself into a standing position, he sees that Daniel’s got the gun lifted to chest height, frown marring his face.

“Dan,” Max’s voice quivers as he tries to get through to Daniel, “You’re not really going to use that, are you?”

The older man doesn’t answer him. Max closes his eyes and counts to ten inside his head. One, two, three. The banging hasn’t stopped, to the contrary; the man is throwing his entire weight into the door now.

Crack.

His extremities are starting to tingle in nervous anticipation.

Four, five, six.

The air is thick, as if transparent smoke is smothering him, slowly taking away his capacity to breathe, think, move. He switched between emotions so quickly that right now, all he can feel is a persistently high anxiety that is gripping him by the throat. Fear to calm, eerie calm, back to fear - panic and fear.

Seven, eight, nine.

The door stops creaking and cracking, but it hasn’t opened. He breathes in deep and holds the breath, waiting for the next noise to hit his eardrums. The sound of nothingness continues, and he holds the air within his lungs for a few more seconds, before exhaling. Ten. He opens his eyes and lets go of his muscles, every fibre in his being feeling tired. He looks at Daniel, who is still watching around the corner of the kitchen, observing the entrance of the apartment. Max opens his mouth and-

The sound is deafening, hollow, shrill, and loud beyond what he could have imagined based on the countless TV series he has seen. As if a whirlwind propels him, Daniel shoots forward and points the gun at the door. When Max looks, it’s as if time is at a stand-still again. His legs feel weak, his eyesight blurry, but one second there is a bullet sized hole in the white door, and the next a man bursts through. He had not even heard the second shot, but the handle of his door is on the floor.

For a terrifying moment, Max truly believes he is going to die, in his own apartment, day two of the apocalypse. He stiffens entirely when he gets a look at the intruder; it makes the situation at hand so much more real. The man’s blond hair is stuck to his forehead from sweat, blue eyes barely visible due to his dilated pupils.

Max becomes acutely aware that the man is holding a gun that is still smoking from the two shots he just took at his door. Everything passes in half the speed again. The man and Daniel both raise their guns at each other as if acting in an old spaghetti western, except that none of them are getting paid to dress up as cowboys participating in a shootout, this is real.

It isn’t until after he hears another shot that the true reality of the moment hits him. Nothing happens then, no screams of pain, no further shots. He’s terrified to look and see who the shot came from, because whoever it was, the implications are nothing he wants to consider right now. He’s forced to face the reality when the look in the eyes of the intruder changes, anxiety giving way to horror and pain, before he crumples to the ground in the middle of Max’ house.

Daniel staggers backwards, past the breakfast bar, where he puts down the gun with shaking hands, all the way until his legs hit the side of the coffee table. He collapses onto the furniture, eyes blown wider than Max has ever seen. The time they smoked weed together back in the Netherlands seems so far away now, but that’s the only thing that comes close to describing the look in his old teammate’s eyes; black and empty, void of all emotions. Except that this void isn’t due to a pleasant high, but caused by the settling dread that he just shot someone who is now dying in front of them.

The man is sprawled out on the floor, and Max realises how young he is. Not his own age, but probably not older than Daniel. Maybe some of his neighbours knew him. He cannot feel sympathy right then, but somewhere in his overactive rational mind he knows that the man is too young to be dying like this. A pool of blood is spreading from his chest onto Max’ carpet, staining it beyond recognition. Max watches in horror, not knowing what to do, stuck to where he is standing. The man scrunches up his eyes, maybe in pain, maybe due to the realisation that death is imminent, Max isn’t sure.

“H...help,” he croaks out. Blood leaks from his mouth, previously white teeth as red as the rest of his mouth. A strong wave of nausea hits Max like a freight train. “Help,” the man repeats his plea for help, but the sound is barely audible. The hole in his stomach isn’t visible through the layers of clothing he is wearing, but the location is clear, the surrounding cloth as deep red as the blood on the floor.

It feels like they’ve been staring at the man for three minutes before his head rolls back and his mouth opens, slack. Anxiety consumes Max and he turns around on his heel, legs back into action. He makes a dash for the sink, where he empties the contents of his already largely empty stomach into it. One, two, three heaves follow the initial one, at which point it’s nothing but bile.

He wipes the spit from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, before opening the tap to flush the evidence of his breakdown from the sink. The water runs, but slows down within moments, until after five seconds it stops entirely.

“Shit!”

It comes out as a sob, tears prickling in the corner of his eyes. He turns his back to the sink and leans against the kitchen cabinet. The dead man’s feet poke into his line of sight from where he is standing against the kitchen cabinet. The Dutchman lets himself sink to the ground with a groan, before burying his face in his hands. He puts pressure on his eyeballs with his palms, vision swimming between colours of red, black, and white. The red is the colour of blood, and the image morphs into the woman gurgling on her own blood, followed by the man pleading for help on his carpet. He opens his eyes to alleviate the picture, only to find the man still there to suckerpunch him right back into those dark images.

He tries to fight it with all his might, but it’s the only thing preoccupying his brain. It replays behind his eyelids when they’re closed, and when he keeps his eyes open it doesn’t get much better. He remembers the fact that Daniel is there when he sees the gun resting on the polished countertop where he usually has his breakfast. He doesn’t dare to look at him.

Daniel, always laughing, smiley, curly-haired and positive Daniel. His old teammate, one of his closest friends, who chose to come and hide with him to sit through the apocalypse. That Daniel, the one that would crack jokes even in the most inappropriate situations, whose gun is lying on the breakfast bar.

That Daniel killed someone.

In his house.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Qui est la?" - who is there?  
> "Ouvre la porte!" - open the door!  
> "Je sais que vous êtes là!" - I know you are there!  
> "Pourquoi?" - Why?  
> "Je ne parle pas français" - I don't speak French  
> "Tu parle anglais?" - do you speak English?


End file.
